


Inked

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:15:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4894366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time commuting to and from NYU with Elliott gets Blaine thinking about tattoos, and Kurt helps Blaine explore his possibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inked

When Blaine comes back to New York, Blaine and Elliott end up on the subway from NYU to Brooklyn together a fair amount. At first, Blaine suspects Kurt requested Elliott play nice and look out for Blaine through his transition to NYU, but they genuinely get along. Most rides, Elliott listens in bemusement as Blaine recounts the adventures of his day in a new school, sometimes soliciting advice, sometimes looking for a sympathetic ear, and sometimes just happy for even more attention. After so many years playing the mentor he wish he had, Blaine finally has someone like him but more experienced who he can actually look up to and whose advice he trusts.

“I want to make sure I do things differently this time. But the _right_ kind of differently. Not just different for the sake of being different, but _better_. I know I can do better.” Blaine is hyper aware of every choice he makes now. He is starting fresh, and he’ll take all the support he can get, whether it’s over what clubs he should join because he’s probably not physically capable of joining them all, how to survive group projects, or how to express feelings he would usually keep bottled up inside. Blaine has no qualms about having a real, personal conversation surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

“Are you happy?” Elliot asks.

“Yes.” Blaine doesn’t have to think to know what it’s true. It’s all a better fit this time. NYU, the cozy apartment he found with Kurt, his _relationship_ with Kurt, the friendships he’s building. He’s so happy it scares him. “Absolutely yes.”

Elliott knocks against his shoulder, and it’s not entirely the jolting subway’s fault. “Then you’re doing better already.”

An extended period of time pressed close on a crowded subways, holding onto the rail overhead, and a height difference that puts Blaine on eye level with Elliott’s shoulder leads to Blaine admiring Elliott’s tattoo sleeve that go from his bicep all the way down to his wrist.

“Did you do your sleeve all at once?” Blaine lifts up on his tiptoes. It looks all like one design on a quick glance, but Blaine looks closer and maybe it wasn’t always that way.

“Parts of it. Other parts came piece by piece.”

“Where does it begin?”

Elliott points to a spot midway down his arm. “A drunken night at Burning Man. I was in my Finding Myself phase – more than usual, you know, because it’s not like that phase ends - and I wanted something beautiful to always be a part of me. Some are commemorative, and some are just for fun. I like the art of it. When you do it right, you feel like a walking masterpiece.”

Tattoo origin stories become an overcrowded subway routine. Blaine points to one, and Elliott launches into a story on his inspiration, how long it took to decide he wanted it, and how he feels about it now.

One day, Elliott fills a lull in conversation with, “You could get one.”

“No, thank you,” Blaine says politely and automatically, the same way he was taught to say no to drugs and strangers with candy.

“You like art.” Elliott says more to continue their casual chatter than out of a strong opinion on the matter.

“If I mess up a song, it sucks but the moment passes. Or if I don’t get a routine right, I can try again. If I get a tattoo and then it’s terrible, I’m stuck with it forever. I love Kurt’s nonsense scribbled on his shoulder, but it caused a lot of unnecessary drama.”

Elliott laughs at that. “Yeah, it’s best to actually think about them for a little while if you’re nervous about the permanency. I have my share of impulses to show, but with others I drew them on before to see how it felt and whether I still liked them a week or a month or a year later. And even though it’s permanent, it can still change. You saw that with Kurt.” ~~~~

Blaine thinks about how it would feel on his walk home. He never considered it for himself. Clean cut and wholesome has always been his look. Pristine. But he’s curious and ready for new risks, and he doesn’t feel particularly pristine lately either, after all the growing up he’s had to do. Everything else in his life is so new right now, so why not transform himself with it? He isn’t committed to the idea yet, but for the first time he contemplates something small to remind him he isn’t that person anymore.

Music notes seem an obvious choice. If he had a line from a song he loved enough, he could let the notes or lyrics wrap around his skin. He doesn’t have a single favorite, though. At least, nothing comes to mind. He loves hundreds of songs, but how to pick just one? And pretty much every musician ever has contemplated a music note tattoo at some point in time, so shouldn’t he try for something more unique when picking a way to mark his new life?

“If I got a tattoo, what would I get and where?” Blaine asks Kurt in fading evening light while Kurt fusses over draping fabric on his mannequin.

“Maybe think about it first and leave Limoncello out of it.” Kurt’s eyes twinkle with amusement at himself. He tips his head in invitation for Blaine to come kiss him.

Blaine accepts the invitation wholeheartedly. They fit together so familiarly, with Kurt’s arms flung over Blaine’s shoulders as he lets Blaine take some of his weight and Blaine’s hands around Kurt’s waist steadying them both. It’s an undivided attention kind of kiss. Neither of them takes it for granted. When Blaine breaks away, he says, “It’s just for fun. I’m not going to run out right now and ink the first thing you suggest. You don’t have _quite_ that much sway, you know.” 

“Let’s see.” Kurt pulls off the pincushion on his wrist, carefully held away from Blaine, and sets it aside. He indicates for Blaine to turn with the spin of a finger.

Blaine holds his arms out as he turns. His eyebrows arch in invitation.

“You’re distractingly handsome just as you are. Put a tattoo wherever you want.”

“You just wanted me to spin.” Blaine softens his accusation with another kiss.

Kurt grins his guilt. “Are you busy enough tonight that I shouldn’t distract us? Am I supposed to treat this too seriously to flirt with you? I can start serious, but we know where this will end.”

“Giggling and orgasms?”

Kurt rewards him with a peck on the cheek. “May I distract you?”

“I’m free for the night.” Thrill shivers through Blaine, still, at the promise his words don’t quite make.

"Perfect. Ten minutes," Kurt promises. 

Blaine reads ahead for one of his classes while the wait becomes closer to 20 minutes before Kurt reaches a stopping point, the tattoo in the back of Blaine’s mind and easy enough to ignore when he puts his mind to something else. But then Kurt giddily ushers them both to the bedroom, Blaine’s layers cast aside so they can pick a spot on his skin and Kurt’s so it’s fair. Kurt may love his clothes, but he cares nothing about tossing them aside when sex is on the line. They drop to the mattress with a bounce that has them both stifling giggles. Kurt looks at him like Christmas came early.

Kurt examines Blaine’s wrist first. “Would you want it somewhere visible?”

“That one would hurt. I don’t think I’d want to get one somewhere that hurts.”

Kurt drops a kiss over his pulse.

Blaine’s lip twitches. Skin is definitely too tender there. That rules out anywhere else his skin is thin, like his ankle, or at the nape of his neck where Kurt tucks his chin. Maybe a little lower. “Did your shoulder hurt?”

“Just my pride.” Kurt drops another kiss, higher up, leading himself toward Blaine’s bicep and tugging Blaine closer with it. He moves lazy and contented before they reach any release. He coquettishly looks up as his lips drag over a defined line of muscle. “I like it here.”

Blaine grins in response. If this is a new kind of foreplay, sign him up for a whole body worth of tattoos. Maybe it’s excessive to get turned on at a touch so light and innocent, but he doesn’t fight it. His breath and his ability to hold himself upright threaten to give out, as he says, “Not there. Too _Jersey Shore_ for non-Halloween days.”

 “Your tattoo could be friendly with my tattoo.” Kurt guides Blaine into touching him there, his own fingers over Blaine’s heart where they would match up, followed by another kiss that takes full advantage of Blaine’s teetering and pushes him back against the mattress. “We could pick something that goes with _it’s got Bette Midler_.”

“I do not want a dirty joke featuring Bette Midler permanently inked on me.” Blaine shudders. He’s already imagining something like _I call my dick Bette Midler_ tattooed over his heart and he’s horrified on his own behalf.

Kurt’s eyes crinkle. Blaine’s distaste for Bette Midler never fails to amuse him, and it comes up fairly often given Kurt’s tattoo. His chin rests on Blaine’s chest for a moment. His fingers trace a joke he doesn’t tell.

Blaine rubs his thumb idly over the spot on Kurt’s shoulder where he knows it is. “Besides, I don’t think a chest tattoo is right for me. I’ll either feel like a pirate or Superman when I try to show it off.” He auditions for his fair share of heartthrob roles, or at least he has lately, so maybe he should avoid any tattoos that would be uncovered in a shirtless scene.

“You need dapper tattoo placement, like a pocket watch at your side.” Kurt wriggles there next. His breath tickles and Blaine squirms.

“I think I’d want something with meaning? More than just ‘I like how this looks.’”

“Something with canaries?” Kurt suggests. He moves onto Blaine’s stomach, taunt with anticipation.

“Like one farting music notes?”

“If it’s classy enough for the warblers…”

A laugh huffs out of Blaine. “Maybe.”

His breath becomes even harder to catch as Kurt moves lower.

Blaine looks at the ceiling and thinks of tattoos instead of Kurt’s mouth. Their wedding date under his ring, the date he met Kurt in the spot Kurt’s thumb slid when they took each other’s hand upon meeting - it seems all the good tattoos are ones that will hurt - a birdcage with the door open, stylized piano keys for Kurt to press his fingers against. All possibilities, but Kurt makes it so hard to focus.

“How would you want a tattoo to make you feel?”

“Centered, maybe?” Blaine remembers feeling adrift before, and Blaine will fight to keep from ever going back there again.

Kurt pets below Blaine’s belly button and Blaine thinks there, maybe, right at his center, but not much lower.

Kurt doesn’t follow his eyes and kisses at the divot of Blaine’s hip instead. He skips over where Blaine wants his mouth the most next to Blaine’s protests of, “Kurt… Kurt, I can’t put a tattoo there….” and guides Blaine’s knee into bending to bring his thigh to easier reach.

 “Well, if you want somewhere that won’t be seen…” Kurt grins wickedly and sucks kisses into Blaine’s thigh through the ridiculous noises Blaine makes. Kurt looks so pleased with himself the more Blaine becomes undone.

“Can I get distracted now?” Kurt asks so sweetly Blaine feels it right at his core. He waits for Blaine’s nod.

When Blaine’s head drops back again, Kurt stops holding back and makes Blaine forgets all about tattoos.

After the success of the first tattoo conversation – success in the sense that Blaine got laid, not that he narrowed down what he wants to do – Blaine sketches out a puzzle piece on his hip as a test run. He wants to see how it would look, and a doodle in sharpie is low stakes. He shows it to Elliott on the subway and, oops, this is how rumors start, because it’s a delicate balance between letting Elliott see and mooning him, but Elliott seems to get that Blaine’s lack of boundaries are about friendship. Hooking his thumb into his pants and underwear and pulling hard enough to expose his hip and nothing else works, but it’s a strain. It’s not like Blaine’s pants are loose enough to pull down easily.

“Are you going to want to show it to everyone?” Elliott asks, bemused.

“Probably not the best idea, huh?” Blaine grins apologetically at the woman his mother’s age wrinkling her nose at him across the subway.

Elliott tips his head. “It’s kinda like half of a ‘best friends’ necklace. Are you going to convince Kurt to get one too and print ‘best husbands’ in them?”

“That’s perfect!” He didn’t even think of matching tattoos that weren’t dirty jokes about Bette Midler.

Elliott laughs. “I was joking, but okay.”

Blaine shows his sketched tattoo off to Kurt with just as much pride. He has no qualms about mooning Kurt. Kurt pulls on the tab of Blaine’s zipper with a flirty smirk and pushes Blaine’s jeans further out of the way. His fingers settle around the edges of the puzzle piece.

“We could both get them. We could fit together.” Blaine tries not to push too hard, but his excitement bubbles to the top. “If you get yours a little higher and I get mine a little lower, our height difference should account for the rest, and they could lock together. We’d be connected at the hip. Adorable, right?”

Kurt’s lips purse, but he’s enthralled enough by his hands on Blaine’s fake tattoo that Blaine isn’t worried.

“Would you want your puzzle piece to fit into mine, or mine into yours?”

Blaine’s jaw goes slack.

“What?” Kurt asks.

“Is it me, or did that just sound really hot?” Maybe it’s having Kurt’s hands on his bare hip, metal from his pants digging into sensitive skin and barely keeping him covered, all while talking about how he fits with Kurt. It’s not like it’s hard for Kurt to turn him on.

Kurt grabs the puzzle piece and squeezes. He drags Blaine’s hips to meet his. If he doesn’t think a puzzle metaphor sounds hot, he’s at least game.

They don’t even make it to their room this time. Instead, they fit together as best they can over Blaine’s workspace. With the sweat they work up, the ink smears from Blaine’s hip to Kurt’s fingers.

“Want me to draw it back in?” Kurt asks, rubbing idly at the place where it was.

“No.” Blaine can’t help lamenting, now that he thinks about it, that the pieces would face each other but never touch, no matter how hard their hips work. He’s sentimental enough that it seems tragic for them to be separated forever like that. Blaine’s glad it’s gone, smeared between them, a trace still visible on Kurt’s fingertips. “It’ll become too much like a top/bottom joke neither of us wants to tell anyway.”

If the tattoo is meant to be, he’ll think of something else. Until then, tattoo suggestions become part foreplay, part running joke. Blaine doubts it will go anywhere, as none of their ideas stick.

“How do you feel about neck tattoos?” Kurt will tease, nuzzling at Blaine’s throat. Or he’ll send random picture texts captioned only _your new tattoo._ Sometimes he’ll help draw one on.

Santana tells him to give in and get a tramp stamp already.

Brittany suggests he tattoo on a permanent bowtie.

In response to his concern over tattooing any part of him that’s too slender, his friends chorus their suggestions of “your ass” and variations thereof.

Rachel proves to be the most helpful by asking sweetly, “Is there anything you want to commemorate?”

Blaine twists his wedding ring. He already has that. A commemorative tattoo should be something that he lost and can’t get back. Unwittingly, he thinks of his burnt down alma mater.

He sketches out a phoenix rising from ashes on paper again and again until he has a design he thinks is right. He wants it between his shoulder blades, because that’s just where wings have to go. He enlists Rachel’s help getting an idea of what it will look like on his skin in order to surprise Kurt later, and since in a way it’s Rachel’s idea. She stutters a ballpoint pen halfway between his shoulder blades for the first stroke. The pen presses harder on a second stroke. A moment later, it repeats a similar but different path.

Blaine winces. “Everything okay?”

“Work in progress! It’ll look better when it’s – oh. Oh! Hold still.”

Blaine resists twisting around to see. Each unsteady scratch builds on top of his worry. “How rough is it? Rachel?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this bad at something,” Rachel says in distress. “Sorry!”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Blaine soothes. He twists to see the phoenix in the mirror. One eye is bigger than the other. Its wings are uneven. Overall, it looks terrified, bedraggled, and more duck than phoenix.

At least it’s not permanent.

Blaine presses the pen back into Rachel’s hand. “Turn it back into ashes, Rach.”

Rachel dutifully scribbles over it. “That’s less horrifying. Maybe scrub it off and try again?”

Blaine doubts he’ll see dignity in it ever again. Tattoo artists may be professionals, but it’s too easy for the perfect intricate design like that to go completely awry when out of his control.

“I’d want a tattoo I can see anyway,” Blaine reassures when Rachel still looks distraught.

It takes several weeks to feel brave enough to contemplate the next tattoo.

“I still like the idea of music notes at my ankles,” Blaine admits to Elliott while their subways stalls between stations. Even if it’ll hurt. He keeps coming back to that one. It’s something cheerful, easy to show off or hide, and simple enough to follow through on. Which is how, on yet another subway ride, Blaine’s ankle ends up pulled over onto Elliott’s lap for a better angle while Elliott makes use of a full array of colorful sharpies to test it out.

“Did you ever do this as a kid?” Elliott asks conversationally as he sketches around Blaine’s ankle. It’s still not the weirdest thing happening on the subway.

“My mom didn’t like it. It wasn’t classy.”

Elliott smirks in response. “What’s she going to say now?”

Blaine shrugs. “Probably that it’s cute. People change.”

“Do you like it?”

Blaine admires the brightly colored music notes that chase each other around his heels. “I really do. I can see it this way, and it makes me happy.”

While others would be satisfied with that response, Elliott is more measured. “Okay, so it’s the one your happiest with. But do you actually want it? You don’t _need_ to get a tattoo just because you’ve been fixated on it lately. Is it the better kind of different for you?”

Blaine falters for a moment. “I…Growing up is hard. I want to feel like I got there okay. The last few years have been a lot, and I like the idea of _something_. Something to help me feel centered in this time right now. Something that I see every day that marks this time as new so I can feel it and remember the difference, because I’ve changed more than the outside shows. Maybe the tattoo’s a bad idea for now, but I keep wanting something. And it’s bright, and cheerful. I like that. It doesn’t have to be much.... That’s a lot of navel-gazing, sorry.”

As usual, Blaine can count on Elliott to listen and nod along attentively.

“I’m with you. Actually, that gives me an idea.”

Which is the story of how Blaine comes home with a multicolored bellybutton ring and a proud smile instead.


End file.
